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Zynga has emerged victorious from a round of battle in the High Court after Mattel claimed Zynga's Scramble With Friends app infringed on the toy maker's trademark for Scrabble. Mattel argued that the app's name was too similar to their classic boardgame, Scrabble, which is known as one of the best ways to turn the action of forming of words into a passive-aggressive, violent affair.

Although the judge ruled in favor of Zynga concerning the name dispute, he did side with Mattel concerning the app's logo, stating that it "gives the impression that the word is Scrabble when one looks at it quickly."

Mattel spokesperson Alan Hilowitz said the company is "disappointed that the court did not rule that Zynga should cease using the Scramble name, which Mattel intends to appeal."

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>legalmattelomgpopscrabblescramble-with-friendszyngaSun, 03 Nov 2013 20:30:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/13/the-power-of-glove-is-a-feature-length-power-glove-documentary/http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/13/the-power-of-glove-is-a-feature-length-power-glove-documentary/http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/13/the-power-of-glove-is-a-feature-length-power-glove-documentary/#comments
Filmmakers Adam Ward, Andrew Austin and Paula Kosowski have taken it upon themselves to chronicle the creation and impact of one of the most infamous video game peripherals of all time, the Power Glove.

Their film, The Power of Glove, is a feature-length documentary built upon interviews with Mattel hardware and software engineers involved in the glove's design, as well as accounts of people whose lives have been impacted by the device, such as musical artist Yeuda "Side Brain" Ben-Atar. The film is still under production according to its Facebook page, and as such no release date/method has been announced.

We're hoping that release comes sooner rather than later, as we desperately need to know how much skrilla it takes to get one of the custom "Beat It" gloves seen in the trailer. We've got "big bank," as it were - let's talk about this.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>documentaryindiemattelNESpower-glovethe-power-of-gloveSat, 13 Jul 2013 21:00:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/cut-the-rope-inks-toy-deal-getting-bath-time-content-update-s/http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/cut-the-rope-inks-toy-deal-getting-bath-time-content-update-s/http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/cut-the-rope-inks-toy-deal-getting-bath-time-content-update-s/#commentsCut the Rope will transcend the virtual world inside of your techno-gizmo for that of the real. Several new partnerships will ensure Cut the Rope-branded products are in your local brick-and-mortar soon.

A new board game that mimics the gameplay of the app will launch from Mattel, along with digitally enhanced toys that interact with your device. An example given details an OmNom toy interacting with an iPad to unlock a special Cut the Rope app. Jakk's Pacific will produce a plug-and-play game console for your TV. It will come with a special controller to play Cut the Rope on your TV.

Finally, there will also be a new update for Cut the Rope: Experiments that introduces a new character and new physics, and adds water-based puzzles into the mix. No word on when the update will launch as of right now -- ZeptoLabs is waiting on Apple approval right now for Bath Time.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>androidcontent-updatecut-the-ropeiosipadiphonejakks-pacificmattelmobiletoysupdatezeptolabMon, 13 Feb 2012 16:00:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/07/angry-birds-board-game-coming-this-may-from-mattel/http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/07/angry-birds-board-game-coming-this-may-from-mattel/http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/07/angry-birds-board-game-coming-this-may-from-mattel/#comments
Here's one of CES 2011's less technical, but most awesome, revelations: Mattel is working on a board game adaptation of Rovio's mobile hit, Angry Birds. The game looks like a pretty authentic recreation of its source material; players draw "Mission Cards" depicting structures of bricks and pigs, which they then build using plastic models included in the game. Oh, and then they shoot birds at those structures using a tiny slingshot. That part is pretty integral to the whole experience, apparently.

The game will cost $14.99 when it launches worldwide this May. Even if you don't want the board game, $14.99 is a perfectly reasonable price for a tiny catapult. Just think of all the tiny things you can terrorize with a catapult of that size!

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>angry-birdsboard-gameces-2011chillingomattelrovioFri, 07 Jan 2011 15:30:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/05/thq-and-mattel-enter-game-deal-includes-masters-of-the-universe/http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/05/thq-and-mattel-enter-game-deal-includes-masters-of-the-universe/http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/05/thq-and-mattel-enter-game-deal-includes-masters-of-the-universe/#comments
THQ will target kids with a new multi-year, multiplatform "alliance" with Mattel -- that's for sure. What we're not so sure about is whether those targets are intended to be kids of the 80s or their kids of today. A news announcement reads like a who's who of garage-sale name drops: Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Masters of the Universe, and even Polly Pocket (who's apparently still going strong these days).

While the deal with Mattel encompasses games that could appear on any platform imaginable, THQ did specifically note the potential in re-introducing the toy maker's brands through the uDraw GameTablet for Wii. "As we have shown with the combination of uDraw and Pictionary, there is enormous potential for the strategic relationship between THQ and Mattel," said Martin Good, executive veep of THQ's Kids, Family and Casual Games division.

The brilliant part about all this is that when you hand over THQ's Tablet and a copy of the He-Man: By the Power of Grayscale drawing game to the GameStop clerk, you simply say, "It's for my kid" -- and he sort of has to believe you.

The author burnt out several synapses levitating the ball for this photo.

Mattel had a booth at CES pimping out things like U.B. Funkeys, a Barbie nail design automatic applicator contraption, and Mindflex, a game that claims to harness the untapped power of your brain's beta waves. These are waves that the brain generates when you're busy solving problems, concentrating, or trying to decipher what the sales chart trends on Joystiq are pointing toward.

Mattel wants to channel said waves into a franchise of games under the Mindflex banner, the first of which offers a "float the ball with your brain" challenge. To play, you slap on a funky headband, attach little butterfly clips to your earlobes and then concentrate really hard. If you do it well enough ... the ball floats. Relax your brain or close your eyes, and it hovers down.

Hasbro has dropped its lawsuit against the creators of Facebook app. sensation Scrabulous. No reason was given in court documents as to why Hasbro dismissed its suit against the makers of the Scrabble clone, but a statement by the defendants reveals an "agreement" between the two parties "avoids potentially lengthy and costly litigations."

Electronic Arts has had an authorized Scrabble app. on Facebook since July. Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble outside North America, also currently has a lawsuit pending against the Scrabulous creators in its home country of India. There's currently no update of the status of that lawsuit.

Hoping to make a comeback with that 365-point quixotry play in Scrabulous? US and Canadian Facebook users were likely dismayed to find out this week that Scrabulous has been disabled. The region-specific lock likely has to do with Hasbro's license for all Scrabble video games, which is for US and Canada only (Mattel owns the rights for the rest of the world). In the interim, you can always play the official Scrabble Facebook app care of Electronic Arts, although it lacks the panache of the seemingly now-defunct Scrabulous.

The region-locking is due to the confusing state of Scrabble's international copyright. In the majority of the world, toy manufacturer Mattel owns the rights to the game, but in North America, that honor goes to Hasbro. Everything would be honky dory with the Facebook version, except that EA already has an agreement with Hasbro to distribute digital versions of their titles, which the RealNetworks-developed Facebook app would be in breach of if Scrabble were playable in North America.

Fortunately, North Americans apparently aren't missing much: the game is currently suffering from the "beta blues", with its woefully-small user base already up in arms on the discussion boards over some usability issues, as well as the system's penchant for deleting in-progress games. Nothing beats the real thing, right?

With 2.3 million active users, Scrabulous has become the Facebook application of choice for linguaphiles and procrastinators unlike. Unfortunately for its many, many fans, Scrabble publisher Hasbro has become a bit grumpy over the success of the free, unofficial clone of its bestselling game. CNN's Fortune blog reports that Hasbro's been trying to pull the plug, requesting that the web and Facebook versions of the clone be removed.

Hasbro owns all distribution rights for Scrabble in the United States. Mattel, who owns the rights for all other parts of the world, has only recently joined in the fight, placing further pressure on Scrabulous' developers, who are based out of Calcutta.

At the moment, EA currently has a contract deal with Hasbro to develop and distribute digital versions of its games, including Scrabble. One commenter on CNN's post, who claims to represent Hasbro, stated that EA is currently developing a digital version of Scrabble, and that Scrabulous' execution raised heads after being strikingly similar to the version in production. Whether or not this is true, we hope that some sort of agreement can be reached that can keep the Facebook app afloat.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>eaea-gamesElectronic-ArtsfacebookhasbromattelPCscrabblescrabulousThu, 17 Jan 2008 08:00:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/19/i-love-ten-power-gloves-theyre-so-bad/http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/19/i-love-ten-power-gloves-theyre-so-bad/http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/19/i-love-ten-power-gloves-theyre-so-bad/#comments
Here's our variation of the "tree falls down in the woods" question: If ten Power Gloves are inside sealed boxes, never to be opened, are they still awful controllers? We think yes, but we'll never know for sure. Whatever dangerously insane collector decides to buy a case of ten unopened Japanese Power Gloves is very unlikely to be insane enough to ruin their value by opening any of them. Apparently these Power Gloves were a retailer's dead stock (the Power Glove was a spectacular failure in Japan), and have thus been put on eBay in their original form, as they came from the manufacturer.

The item is at a current price of $209 AUD ($180 USD), should you have the desire to build a fort out of failed peripherals. The Power Glove is a reminder that motion-based controllers will never work on Nintendo consoles -- especially when those controllers require external sensors.